Chapter 8

Johannes tilted his head crookedly and cupped his chin with one hand. The slight redness around his eyes made it seem as though he was holding back laughter.

Judith scanned Johannes with her eyes, racking her brain as if it were about to explode. It seemed like a joke. No. It was too much for a joke. Saying they had spent the night together was never used as a joke. Especially between a man and a woman with noble blood flowing through their veins. Then did he know the person who had spent the night with her? If he had heard the story from that person about his night with Judith Loewe? She had heard that men of poor character exchanged stories like that. Out of some hero complex, saying they had slept with so-and-so, and things like that. That was why one had to be careful with men. Elijah’s old nagging suddenly came back to her, the way she had once chattered on that she was worried about gullible Judith.

“What… what do you mean by that?”

Judith took one step back from Johannes and barely forced out the question. Apparently displeased with it, Johannes rebelliously lifted one eyebrow at an angle. Then he stepped forward the same distance Judith had retreated and lowered his head. The closeness, enough for their breaths to mingle, was uncomfortable. Judith met Johannes’s dark gaze for a moment, but in the end lowered her head. Her eyes, now fixed near his feet, shook quickly. The breath brushing the crown of her head felt strangely familiar. Even though she had never faced him this closely before. Judith rubbed the back of her neck with her palm and subtly stepped backward.

“Don’t tell me… you don’t remember?”

The way he dragged out the tail end of the question made her deeply uncomfortable. Judith lifted her head and glared at Johannes.

“I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to remember, but did you hear something?”

“I didn’t hear it, but I do remember it.”

Johannes stretched out a hand, brushed the strand of hair stuck to Judith’s cheek behind her ear, and whispered. The distance kept shrinking. His lips might touch hers at any moment. Judith swallowed hard. He had lived abroad, so perhaps skinship meant nothing to him. She remembered Elijah grumbling that in some places kissing someone’s cheek or neck was considered a greeting. That there was nowhere as rigid as Bayer.

“What… what is it that you remember?”

I wish he would back off already. At this rate our lips are going to collide.

Judith bent her knees slightly and escaped the line of Johannes’s face. She could simply have pushed him away and said she was uncomfortable, but the problem was that her weak-minded heart was helpless before Johannes.

“You and I. We spent quite a heated night together. Don’t you remember?”

“What?”

“I even left you a note. Saying your m*ans were my type.”

“Ha!”

So the lunatic who said her m*ans were his type had been Johannes Meyer? Judith’s legs gave out, and she could no longer stand. She covered her mouth with both hands and collapsed onto the floor. It was unbelievable enough that she had spent the night with someone, but for that person to be Johannes of all people. She honestly felt like dying on the spot. This was the moment Johannes’s nightmare truly came to life. She had never imagined it would lead to a disaster this great. So it hadn’t been some meaningless anxiety after all. Even if Grandmother had beaten her to death that day, she should not have gone out. She should not have listened to her nanny. Distraught, Judith stared blankly at the floor.

“So you really don’t remember?”

Johannes bent his knees and crouched down, waving his hand before the place where Judith’s gaze was stuck.

“Here. You even left nail marks spelling out ‘Judith Loewe.’”

When Judith’s gaze did not follow, Johannes placed a hand on her cheek and unbuttoned his shirt one by one. Through the parted shirt, his long neck, the hollow of his collarbones, and beneath that, his pale flat chest were revealed.

Only then, as if her mind had suddenly returned, Judith covered her eyes with both hands.

“What are you doing?!”

Johannes grabbed one of Judith’s delicate wrists and lowered it. On his chest, white as a snowy mountain, there were red nail marks. And there, clear as day, it said Judith Loewe. Just how hard had she scratched him for scabs of dried blood to have formed in places? Judith rolled her eyes and confirmed the mad thing she had done. Ah, there was no hope left for her life. She had lost her mind completely. An excuse like being drunk would never work. This was a crime.

Judith drew in her carelessly sprawled legs and sank down onto her knees. What do I do now? I should apologize first, right? He must have found it unpleasant, spending a night with a girl whose confession he had not even wanted to accept. And she had even carved her name into his chest. No. But then why had she gotten into bed with Johannes? She had no reason to meet him. If she had spotted Johannes at the engagement party, she would have run away at once.

Did I force myself on him? Did I force someone who didn’t want it…? Did I really? No, how could I, someone ignorant about relations between men and women, have forced myself on him? Did I follow that book Elijah lent me? No, fine, let’s say I did. Then if he didn’t like it, he could’ve avoided me. Right. Johannes was taller than I was, bigger than I was, stronger than I was. So subduing one drunken woman wouldn’t have been difficult for him. Then did he go along with it willingly? He even left that vulgar note saying my m*ans were his type. Or did I seem easy to him? Since I was the one clinging to him, maybe it was just… well, like that? My head is such a mess I could go mad, I don’t know what happened or how. It would be nice if there were a witness or something. No! Absolutely not. No one can ever know that I was alone in a room with Johannes. Especially if it ever reaches Elijah’s ears, my life is over.

While Judith’s mind raced through every possible thought, Johannes traced a finger across his chest and continued.

“You were pretty rough. I didn’t know that was your taste.”

“What taste?”

“Pushing, biting, scratching. Shall I say… you were like a wild beast?”

What on earth did that mean? 

Since she remembered nothing, she had no idea what she had done. Judith opened her eyes round and blinked rapidly.

“I guess you quite liked the taste of my sausage?”

She did not know exactly what he meant, but it clearly sounded like he was talking about what had happened between a man and a woman. Judith fanned her flushed cheeks with her hand and shook her head.

“I-I don’t know. So… stop talking about that night!”

“Why? Weren’t you the one who told me not to forget it? You even said I shouldn’t pretend not to know. Yet in your own memory it doesn’t exist? Then wouldn’t I have a right to feel hurt? Huh, Judith Loewe?”

Johannes lowered his face toward Judith and whispered softly. The breath spilling over her cheek tickled. Judith turned her head aside, trying to avoid his face.

“So then what… what do you want me to do?”

Even though she knew ‘I’m sorry’ should come first, her flimsy pride twisted stubbornly. She had not known he would cling to the significance of one night. Had Johannes liked her body? It infuriated her, this attitude of ignoring her confession thirteen years ago but not being able to ignore what passed between their bodies.

“I was drunk that day, and sadly, it doesn’t exist in my memory. If you think about it, it was nothing much. Just the kind of mishap that can happen often at a party. We’re adults.”

In Bayer, it was not common at all. It was the sort of grave matter that would have both sides summoned before their elders the instant it was discovered. But she had heard that at banquets, men and women who took a liking to each other would secretly slip into rooms and amuse themselves in secret. Elijah, who always seemed to know everything about the back side of society, no matter where she picked such stories up, had once mentioned it. Judith had thought it was nothing but filthy nonsense that dirtied the ears. She had never imagined she would end up using it like this.

“The kind of mishap that can happen often at a party? Ah, so for you, adult Judith Loewe, spending the night with a man is something common. Is that it?”

Johannes narrowed his eyes and studied Judith carefully as she even stumbled over her words.

“Well, yes. We’re adults.”

Right. Adults. Not fifteen-year-old children who got flustered over a single confession. Judith looked Johannes straight in the eye and clenched the hand hidden in her skirt. His pale violet eyes held some unreadable emotion. Had he thought things would go his way because she liked him? And now that things were not going the way he wanted, was he angry? Sorry, but the girl who lost sleep over one expression from the boy she liked no longer existed. So please, go back to where you belong.

Judith rose to her feet. She dusted off first her backside, then her palms, and passed by Johannes, who was still sitting with his knees raised. No. She tried to pass by.

“Oh, because we’re adults? Ha. Then that means you came at me without even knowing who I was?”

The hand that grabbed her sleeve was somewhat rough. Thud. Defenseless, Judith was trapped in Johannes’s arms and twisted her brow.

“What are you doing? Let go.”

“Because we’re adults. Isn’t that fine? By your logic, nothing matters, right?”

“That’s absurd. This is violence.”

“Ha. And what you did to me that day wasn’t violence?”

Right. It was violence. If she had clung to a man who did not want her, then that was unmistakably violence. And yet she did not want to admit it. She had no memory of it. It was also possible that Johannes had embellished the story. To begin with, she was someone unfamiliar with men’s bodies, so there was no way she could have done anything to Johannes…. Though she had learned a little through the book Elijah had insisted she read. The acts between a man and a woman that took place in bed. Relations, and such. But she had no experience. So surely she could not have thought of dragging a man into bed and causing a scandal. It would be easier to believe she had embraced a statue and done something absurd with that. Judith desperately wanted to believe in herself, even the self who had lost her reason in drunkenness.

“If I had known it was you, Johannes, I would never have dragged you into bed.”

Thud. Johannes’s hand, which had been holding Judith’s back, fell away. She did not miss that instant of open space. Judith quickly got to her feet and ran to the door. At the moment she was about to go out through the open doorway, she turned her head without thinking. Johannes was still sitting there with his head bowed toward the floor. He remained like that, like a wounded beast. The sight caught at her heart, but Judith did not go back. She merely passed through the open door and quietly crossed the corridor. I hope we never meet again. Not as friends, and not as a one-night entanglement either. Judith kept shaking her head, trying to suppress Johannes, who was spreading through her like wildfire and burning at her heart.